Mechanics of Typographic Space

Typography is an essential aspect of graphic communication, but the mechanics involved in doing so elegantly can sometimes seem mystifying. Through lectures, assignments, demonstrations and discussions this course will help build a strong grasp of the elements that help to achieve strong typography. The class will explore various strategies in making sound typeface selections, concepts behind making multiple typefaces work together, and dealing with complex hierarchies. We will also tackle fine-tuning long passages of text, and explore various methods of building typographic grids. The class will also cover understanding, and mastery of, minute details (dashes, fractions, spaces, all those strange glyphs in the glyph palette, etc) which often go unseen, but are essential to crafting elegant typography. This is not a basics course, but is rather a more nuanced, deeper exploration of key ideas within typography.

Participants should have a basic understanding of graphic design concepts. Working experience in graphic design, and with InDesign, will be helpful, but is not essential.
A Mac/Windows laptop with a recent version (CS4 or later) of InDesign installed is required. (A free 30-day demo of InDesign can always be downloaded from Adobe.com if necessary).

Instructor:
Alexander Tochilovsky

Alexander Tochilovsky is a graphic designer, typographer, curator and educator, with nearly 20 years of professional design experience, and 10 years experience teaching typography. He graduated with a BFA from The Cooper Union, and holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is currently the Curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography. In 2009 he co-curated the exhibition Lubalin Now, and since 2010 he has curated five other exhibitions: Appetite (2010), Pharma (2011), Type@Cooper (2012), Image of the Studio (2013), & Thirty (2015). Since 2007 he has taught typography and design at the Cooper Union School of Art, and also teaches the history of typeface design at Type@Cooper, the postgraduate certificate program he co-founded in 2010.